Trade: Senior Squids | TBD

Hustle’s toxic $0.02: When the centerpiece of your sell off return is a pitcher in A-ball, you’ve done something wrong. Maybe if you weren’t selling off a big piece, sure. That being said, Gary Sanchez is 25 at the top of an elite position and comfortable priced under 30 bucks. I like Michel Baez, I’ve offered trades for him… but I’ve offered other prospects. Baez is also currently sporting a 4.71 xFIP as well as a 4.7 BB/9. The odds of Baez being an Ace in the majors is real, but slim. Franklin Perez is injured at the moment, he projects to be a decent MLB starter, but also might not be. Kirilloff is certainly a nice A-ball bat, but it’s also at outfield where it’s not particularly hard to find productivity. Jahmi Jones is just a guy. Maybe he’s the good version of Brad Miller/Brandon Phillips at 2B, a very decent depth piece to have if he hits. The chances of one of these players being a superstar like Sanchez is probably under 50%, it’s probably under 25%. You already have a young Sanchez, so trading him for risk seems like a pretty big mistake. If Gary Sanchez suffers a career threatening injury, I like this trade for Squids.

I think if you’re Squids and giving up on 2018 for some reason, it would have made more sense to try and get something out of Paxton instead of Sanchez. Paxton is 29 and has a lengthy injury history. Someone surely would have given him a few decent prospects for him too (still can!). But I think Squid’s goal of assembling the real life Mariners in a 16 team league is real and won’t be stopped.

TBD already has the best team on paper prior to this trade as well as the most points, so this only makes that stronger. In the end, things will come down to a one week playoff and certainly anything is possible. TBD has done tremendously trading non elite prospects for top tier talent. I think Squids panicked a little early in the season and once his mind was made up he was out of it he decided to play kingmaker but instead has made his team a pawn for years to come.

The $10 isn’t a big deal in terms of budget, it’s just a reminder of how cruel humanity can be.

Andrew’s thoughts: When Squids first traded for Gary Sanchez, I got my assessment wrong. That deal was for Corey Kluber, and in retrospect, it’s been alright. Sanchez has done far more than I thought he would and, surprise, surprise, the cost control aspect of these players that I harped on in that review isn’t that big a deal.

Anyway, here we are again, another chance to review a Sanchez trade. And this one strikes me as… worse.

I just don’t understand trading a young, affordable, elite hitter at the top of a thin position for a handful of non-elite prospects. I can’t even decipher who the best prospect here is. I guess it’s Franklin Perez, since he’s seemingly the closest to the majors. If I’m going to trade Sanchez to TBD and I insist on doing it for prospects, then Eloy Jimenez is involved or there’s no deal to be made. Period. I was amazed that JD Martinez and a full loan was handed over to TBD without Eloy and I’m amazed that now Sanchez has been too. If TBD says Eloy’s untouchable, then alright, move along. Whatever. There’s no clear reason that Sanchez had to go anywhere, so just keep him. He’s better than Eloy anyway. But at least in Eloy you’re getting a legitimate, consensus top flight prospect. You do him, Baez, and Jones or whatever and this seems at least explainable.

I just don’t really get the rush to punt on Sanchez. At worst, he’s $44 next year — and that’s with greed, which now will be spread out across other guys instead. Whatever salary is ultimately freed up here seems like it has very little, if any, practical value, especially since $10 also inexplicably got dumped into TBD’s pocket (kudos to Joe and/or Josh for having the balls to say, “we realize we’re getting the best catcher in the game here and he’s on a nice salary, but can we also get $10 to cover when teams greed him up?”), eating into whatever savings. And Squids spent $51 at auction this year on relievers and a broken Carlos Rodon. So like, just don’t do that next year and you can safely keep elite Sanchez. You’re way, way, way better off going into auction with a proven points-scorer like Sanchez locked in than with a bunch of money to flush on risky players.

I mean… our trade block is public, and in it, Squids insisted on “top grade” prospects and cited “major league ready” as a bonus. This batch of prospects are not “top grade.” Per FanGraphs most recent grades, Baez is a 55 FV, the other three guys are 50. That is indisputably not “top grade.” And of them, only Perez is all that close to the majors. Jones is in A+ and converting from CF to 2B, so his development may lag a little. Baez isn’t faring all that well in A+. Kirilloff is coming off surgery in A-ball. These guys won’t help this year or next, most likely, and may not be fantasy relevant until 2020.

So yeah, I just love this deal for TBD. They’ll pick up a few prospects from their watch list for $0 FAAB bids this morning and let them marinate in their minors a while until eventually they’re on a top-100 list, because on a long enough timeline that’s just sort of what happens with halfway decent prospects. And in the meantime, they’ll bank a bunch of Sanchez homer points en route to a potential points championship. Good work, fellas.